Businesses are desperate to show that they care about their customers. How often do you read or hear that they are ‘committed to achieving the highest levels of customer satisfaction’? Perhaps you have even stated the same about your business? These claims are made with the best of intentions; however in many cases the level of customer satisfaction has never been properly measured. The following top tips are intended to show why every business, big or small, should be interested in measuring the satisfaction of their customers.

1. Keeping your existing customers is more profitable than finding new ones.Back in the late 1980’s the American Consumer Association announced that it was 5 times more expensive to win a new customer than to keep an existing one. Many case studies since have confirmed this theory, including MBNA and Domino’s pizza.

2. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.If you don’t find out what is wrong through a customer satisfaction survey you will never be able to make improvements. Equally, if you implement changes to your business you will have no way of measuring its effectiveness other than looking at changes in revenue.

3. Satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal customers.There is growing evidence to support the theory that the more satisfied a customer is the more loyal they will be, however customers have to be exceptionally satisfied before they enter the loyalty zone.

4. Loyal customers become more profitable over time.The longer a customer stays with you, the more valuable they are likely to become as there is a higher chance that they will increase the level of business they do with your company and they are more likely to expand the range of products and services they buy.

5. Satisfied customers are an extension of your sales force. If your customers are happy, or even better, delighted with the service you provide they will be more inclined to recommend you to others.

6. Customers rarely complain; they just take their business elsewhere.Companies that believe their customers are satisfied because they very rarely complain are missing an important part of the picture. In fact, it is quite often those customers who are loyal to your business that will complain as they want the situation resolved. Those who are dissatisfied are far more likely to simply take their business somewhere else.

7. Service often differentiates more than products or prices.Much as we are led to believe that price is king and customers will always go for the cheapest price, quite the opposite is often true. By fully understanding your customer’s needs you will find that price generally only becomes an issue when they are not receiving the level of service that they were expecting.

8. Delight your customers by showing them you care!Everyone likes to feel that their opinion is important, so what better way to confirm to your customers that they are indeed the most important part of your business than by asking them for their opinions? By carrying out a customer satisfaction survey you are clearly stating that you are a business that cares about its customers. Be warned though – never ask for someone’s opinion unless you are going to use the information to make a difference!

9. Great results give convincing PR.It is far more convincing when your customers say how good you are rather than you having to say it yourself. Customer satisfaction measurement provides you with an opportunity to highlight your strong points by sending the results to your customers, and by promoting them in any marketing materials, PR etc. It also gives an opportunity to show that you have taken feedback onboard and made changes as a result.

10. Customer satisfaction is a requirement of ISO 9001:2000According to ISO 9001:2000, customer satisfaction should be measured to monitor the effectiveness of the quality management system and to highlight areas where improvements should be made.